Emer O'Donnell

Recent Posts

Every management team has its own dynamics. Some operate in a fully transparent environment, other keep information strictly on a "need to know basis." But what impact does the sharing of information have?

We're frequently surprised by how little financial information some management teams are privy to. The CEO reckons they don't need to know and the CFO reckons they wouldn't understand the information even if they had it.

Now we share some insights into giving feedback. We have all experienced line managers who give poor feedback. They focus on the negative or what they call ‘constructive criticism’. This type of feedback is hard to digest, difficult to accept and generally not actionable.

I seem to be having a lot of conversations about feedback recently. I’ve been struck by how many people work in a feedback vacuum. Despite a growing ‘feedback’ culture, for many, the only real feedback they get is at their annual performance review. For others, particularly leaders in a business, they don’t even get this.

The thing is – we all need feedback. None of us are perfect and we all have things we could be doing better. But if there is no feedback, how do we know? Equally, when we are doing things well, we also need feedback on that too.

When I was in college I had particular lecturer who had a reputation as a bit of tyrant. One term we were unfortunate enough to have a weekly tutorial with her which started at 8.00am. That’s pretty early for a student. Imagine our horror the first week when we rocked up at 8.05am to find the door locked! Yes that was her rule – turn up on time or you don’t get in.

We spend a large portion of our working week at meetings. But how many are effective, productive and contribute to transforming business growth? Many companies start off with great intentions but find that meetings, particularly weekly management meetings, gradually slip into Groundhog Day and are an ineffective use of people’s time.

Having listened to increasing complaints about this we decided to put together some useful tips for you to consider:

There is something about the autumn term; fresh new schoolbooks, new pencils and leaves falling from the trees. For most of us, as far back as early childhood, autumn represents a fresh start.

We find it’s a time of year when many companies start planning for growth. Maybe it’s facing into the last quarter of the year or perhaps it’s the pressure of making the Q4 numbers. Or maybe it’s simply a throwback to those new schoolbooks and fresh pencils.

High performing teams celebrate success well. They intrinsically understand that to drive the right behavior you need to celebrate success. Yet we had an interesting conversation with a client’s team earlier this week.

In the nine years since I became a parent I’ve spent a lot of time observing how little people interact. The interesting thing I’ve noticed is that you can learn a lot about human behaviour by watching your kids!

I have always been a bit skeptical about the impact of
team building exercises – you know the 'take the team out to the woods and get them to build a bridge' type of stuff. However a recent trip away with my eldest son’s rugby team caused me to rethink this skeptical approach.

Recently we have been doing a lot of work with companies on trying to get the right metrics for their business. Done well, implementing the right set of metrics or KPIs can be a real game changer in transforming business growth. But it’s not easy to get this right.

We’ve all been there. The CEO stands up, presents his vision of the future. He outlines the great and detailed plan the senior team has been working on for weeks. There are usually drinks. Everyone is on a high.

Then next morning everyone goes back to the day job. Nothing changes and that great plan (which cost $$$ in consultant’s fees to develop) is consigned to the shelf behind the CEO’s desk.